Saluting old journalism

Jules WitcoverSyndicated Columnist

Published Tuesday, June 24, 2008

There's a cynical adage among journalists -- that the only way to look at a politician is down. Too often in recent years, the adage is applied in reverse by pols and the public toward the toilers in the field of news and commentary.

It's no secret that the reputation of journalists has plunged since the halcyon days of Walter Cronkite and Scotty Reston, when the former was called the most respected man in America and the latter was the model for clear thinking and clear writing for young wannabes.

That's why the spectacle of laudatory and heartfelt celebration of the life of television moderator and commentator Tim Russert here upon his sudden death at 58 was remarkable. The events marking his passing approached the official tributes for the loss of presidents and other towering figures of state, in a town famous, or infamous, for cynicism.

The incumbent president and the two men now poised to compete to be his successor turned out, along with a stream of political and journalistic luminaries. Beyond that were average citizens drawn not only by Russert's celebrity but also by his commitment to old-fashioned, down-the-line reporting and fair-minded interrogation of politicians on "Meet the Press," the NBC News show that he made his own.

In the post-Watergate era, when the sleuthing team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein chased a president from office and glamorized the newspaper business for a whole new generation of young reporters, both the image and the stature of newsgathering and commentary, including on television, were altered.

The once near-anonymity of reporters was stripped away and, enhanced by regular appearances on television and in the news columns as well, they became celebrities themselves. This was certainly true of Russert, who had a successful turn as a political aide for New York governors and a senator before entering journalism, initially as an off-camera executive.

He easily segued from the political world to journalism and soon to an on-screen personality, armed with keen political judgment and an unvarnished zest for reporting and analyzing the news. In the often self-important, self-promoting world of the talk show host, he tempered his celebrity with his blue-collar, rust-belt roots in Buffalo and came across as the Irish guy at the neighborhood saloon or gas station.

More significantly, at a time journalism became awash with free-wheeling non-standards of accuracy, fairness and self-discipline most often exemplified by the so-called blogosphere, Russert strove to stick to the old boundaries of the news business. He did so in a way that helped shield him from the contempt that the excesses of the new journalism have tarnished the old.

He was not, to be sure, above tapping into the celebrity sickness that has increasingly infected journalism, to the point of inviting some of the scourges of the trade like garbage-picker Matt Drudge onto his Sunday morning talk show. But with a diligent research team, he elevated the show to a consistently probing, fair and often news-making interrogation of the nation's leading political figures.

It's fair to say that Russert took a wilting Sunday morning on television and made it must-see fare. That was so not only for political junkies, but also for average folks who sought the most available avenues for informing themselves, the better to meet their civic responsibilities.

In the process, other Sunday shows also pulled up their socks, notably ABC's weekly gabfest led by another refugee from active politics, George Stephanopoulos, and longtime fair-minded television foot-soldier Bob Schieffer on CBS. ...

With the passing of Tim Russert, journalism -- old and new -- can hope that the paths he strode as a journeyman in celebrity trappings will be followed by the generation that succeeds him.